A neighbor said it sounded like a huge car crash when it came down. There was little to no wind when it happened. The roots were rotten. White Oak trees don’t usually fall over from a rotten base. The wood is more rot resistant than the red oaks, but I guess most any tree can rot.* My friend and former colleague’s wife found it lying on the ground when she arrived home. She reported that the tip of the branches were 10-12 feet from the house. She also said that her husband commented on the tree appearing to be leaning before he left for work. The base was about 3 1/2 feet in diameter with a dense crown from having been topped many years ago.
Though you cannot see much progress, I am already hard at work in the following picture. In fact, it took me 7 hours to clear all of the branches to the point seen in last picture. I had abundant help from my friend and his brother and their wives. They kept the area clear for me to cut non-stop.
I delight in the light gray, “alligator skin” bark of a white oak that wraps around.
A good stance, concentration, ear and eye protection, awareness of what can go wrong, and always God’s grace have kept me from major injury chainsawing for 37 years. The closest I ever came** to major cut injury was a six inch gash in my left pant leg below the knee. Near misses are instructive and precipitate thankful exclamations and further caution.
Awkward positions are unavoidable at times, but having an escape plan and hazard avoidance help. Notice, though it works me harder, how I am instinctively holding the saw away from me. This position avoids the potential kickback of the limb and dropping the saw onto myself.
I took home a truck and trailer load of wood. The homeowner set aside wood to split later and 8′ to 15′ pieces to make a barrier for erosion control. A local welder/woodworker came and got the lower ten feet of trunk for boards. Not wasting resources does my heart good.
Here I avoided reaching overhead by cutting further down the trunk. I dropped this section onto waiting logs below so the I could cut it up without striking the ground, which is the worst enemy to a chain.
Hopefully I will remember to take a few pictures of the end result when I am there again. It was a hard, but a good day’s work. I am thankful to God for continued health to be able to work this hard still outdoors.
*Is Cypress an exception?
**How many major injuries has God kept each one of us from that we knew nothing of?
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